Playing Pretend
by FlangstPrince
Summary: Oneshot. Drabble. Ed used to play pretend all the time...


**Quick drabble I wrote for fun, while procrastinating on other multichapter stories... (i'll try to get on those soon). For now have some brotherly fluff and fun with Lil bros and Winry. Enjoy!**

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"For the KINGDOM!" the young blonde knights shouted their words as they charged towards the person visible across the battlefield. The blue eyed girl laughed in response, holding out her sword.

"You will never defeat me! I'm more powerful than the both of you combined!"

One of the knights bit his lip, "And why is that?"

The girl smirked, "I have the secret power of magalchemy!"

The knight who had questioned her paused and blinked, leaning over to the other knight and whispering, "Does that exist brother?"

The other knight shrugged, "I dunno, apparently?"

"Enough whispers! I'm gonna beat you now!" the girl stepped towards them.

"No you're not!" one of the knights spoke with confidence, "We can beat you even with your dumb powers cause we have got the, uh…"

"Magalchemy cancelling powers!"

"Yea! What he said!"

The evil empress crossed her arms and huffed, "Well, even if you have that you aren't ever gonna beat my dragon!" she whistled and a large, powerful dragon almost clumsily appeared, looking around.

"No! Not a dragon!" one knight yelled in fear.

"Get them!" the empress shouted, pointing, but then the dragon began to walk away, yipping and wagging its tail.

Ed smirked, "Your dragon isn't very well trained."

Winry frowned with a huff as Al chuckled, "Den! Get over here! You don't make a very good dragon you know."

She picked up her puppy, who yipped and lapped her face, "Yuck! Dragon breath!" the boys laughed and ran over to her.

"We almost beat you ya know." Ed commented.

Winry crossed her arms, "As if! I always win!"

"Yea! Cause you change the rules!" Ed pointed accusingly.

"Nuh uh!"

"Uh huh!"

"NUH UH!"

"UH HUH!"

The back door of the house swung open, "No more arguing! It's dinner time."

Ed smiled sheepishly and the the two of them ran inside, bidding Winry farewell.

Trisha set their plates of stir fry in front of them and they ate quickly and hungrily, so they could get back to playing some more before bed.

Once finished eating, they ran into the living room. They noticed their father there, his plate of dinner in front of him, scribbling something in his notebook.

Al wasted no time in initiating the game. "I can't believe we let the empress get away like that! But the queen called us back, so we had to!"

Ed grinned, "Yea, it is really sad she got away, but she won't get away from us next time."

"You said it brother. I bet we'll be able to beat her dragon next time too!"

"YEA!" Ed laughed, "Come on knight Al! We need to prepare for our next encounter!" Ed stood, wielding an imaginary sword.

Al chuckled, "Sure thing knight brother!"

Ed rolled his eyes at that as they began to 'duel', after many swings, Ed was 'stabbed' and fell to the ground in defeat. This took Al by surprise, causing the younger brother to tumble overtop of him.

Al was giggled at the fact that he'd fallen with Ed as the elder looked back over to their father for a moment.

Hohenheim looked…

Unsettled…

The man briskly grabbed his half eaten plate and retreated to his study.

Al noticed his brother's sad face, and got off of him, "What's wrong?"

Ed sniffed a little and stood up, "N-nothing… sorry Al, I don't feel like playing anymore."

The younger's lip wibbled a little, "Did you get hurt?"

"No, it's not that, I just… don't wanna right now."

"Oh… okay."

That night, Ed was unable to sleep, so the noises of the night were quite loud and obvious to him. He perked up at the familiar sound of his dad's study door opening as footsteps went down to his parent's bedroom.

He could hear muffled voices and he grew curious. Ed managed to move out of Al's hold around him without waking the younger, before sliding out of the room and tiptoeing down the hall.

Ed listened carefully near the door.

"Oh is that so?" his mother's voice asked, "Well I saw you leave the living room earlier, what's wrong?"

"Trisha," his father sighed, "I suppose it's just that I didn't ever really get to play like that as a child, as long ago as it was… it feels odd to see it is all. I don't quite understand it, and seeing it makes me feel awkward."

"Oh," Trisha paused, "I didn't realize that…" her tone lifted, "Well maybe you can play with the boys sometime."

Hohenheim sounded flustered, "Me?! Oh no Trisha, I wouldn't be very good at that and I would feel all too awkward, I'm too big for that and you know how I am with children…"

A smile could be heard in Ed's mother's voice, "Nonsense, you're a wonderful father."

Ed stepped back a bit and scrambled back into his room once more, he climbed into bed and pulled the blankets over him. His father's words stuck to him like glue 'I'm too big for that.'

It hadn't occurred to Ed until this point that adults didn't really play pretend. So the real question he asked now was 'when will he be too big?'

He felt Al's arms unconsciously wrap around him again and cuddle close as Ed stared towards the ceiling.

He still found no sleep.

* * *

Ed sighed at the memory, little had he known he'd grow out of it within the next few years. After the death of his mother he'd played less and less, until Alchemy was really the only thing he 'played' with.

The memory had been brought on by a request of Al, a ridiculous sounding one really.

"How about we play warriors?!"

"What?"

Al smiled, "It will be fun! We could make leaf crowns and capes! We already have spears! Then we could hunt down our dinner!" He laughed, "It will be just like old times!"

"Al, I haven't played pretend in years, it's for small children. There's no point in wasting energy on making leaf crowns and capes." he grabbed his sharpened stick, "We can just use our sticks to hunt it down like normal people."

Al sighed, "Since when are we normal people Ed?" his brother huffed in response, "Come on brother! It will be fun!"

"Fun isn't a word on this fucking hellscape." Ed rolled his eyes.

Al raised a finger, "It can be if we want it to be! Don't you remember how to make crowns?"

"Of course I do, I just think it's ridiculous." Ed crossed his arms and turned away.

Al's tone dropped, "Oh… okay."

Ed's heart clenched, FUCK. He didn't want to upset Al, he didn't even think that maybe Al wanted to do it with him cause he was bored, and he missed home, and he thought it was fun.

Ed couldn't deny his brother that.

Ed whipped around with a forced look of contemplation.

"Mmn." Al perked up, "Ya know Al?"

"What brother?"

"I've been wearing these clothes for way too long, and I do think I need something to shake it up a bit… we can see if we've gotten any rusty at making crowns too." He shrugged.

"Really brother?!" Al's eyes lit up.

"Yea! We can even make the capes!"

The smile Ed got in response was brighter than the sun.

And so they did.

Al placed his crown on his head and tied his cape around his neck as he let out a yell, Ed following suit. They both ran out into the woods with their spears and laughed a little along the way.

That night, Ed laid next to Al, satiated by the meal they had caught. Al had dozed off, exhausted yet Ed reminisced on the day.

The odd thing was that he'd actually had fun.

That was the last thing Ed expected. He looked at his brother.

Al snoozed peacefully. Though maybe it wasn't the game that was fun…

Maybe it was just his little brother.

Ed wrapped his arms around Al and snuggled close to his younger brother.

Maybe he wasn't too big for playing pretend after all.

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 **Thank you for reading! I really appreciate any feedback you'd like to give, I hope you enjoyed!**


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